legacy

i do not like the energy of this place.

it has the feeling of a skin graft...naturally artificial. this place, much of it, has been transplanted here, imported. it does not belong.

the walls are invisible, but clearly marked. an abundance of urban blight surrounding the fortress/oasis...pleasant place to be as long as you don't go too far out of the box. when the lines have to be crossed, the fear is palpable.

there is something restless here. history razed to make way for housing, parking lots, new research labs and other assorted knickknacks.

but this place lies over years of memories, blood, sweat, tears. it is not just the antiseptic feel of a hospital that lingers. it is the image of the plantation. the memories of the homeless people who disappeared. the children and the lead.

it is the way black folks are kept in the basements.

the back entrances and lonely service ramps haunting the undersides of the sparkling new buildings.

hierarchy is in the bricks here. bureaucracy in the air. it is difficult to breathe.

consciousness stream 3

my empathy is god's way/ of allowing my great (times 10) grandmother/ to shed her tears//


my lifestyle/ allows space for emotion she may never have fully explored/ or understood//


sometimes i wonder/ how many of her men were chased away/ maybe that's why mine don't stick around//


massa's warped sensibilities exchanged for/ the attentions of absentee fathers and overworked mothers/slavery is/ still fucking my shit up/ only in a different timeplacespaceway//


but/ details aside/ dysfunction is still dysfunction...


i only want to make the weeping stop/ replay the joyful ceremonies/ spread balm over the wounds/ make a way outta no way/ love against the odds that/he'll know how to love me back...


the ancestors desired a time traveler/ so here i am/ stuck in a distant present/ remembering a dimly lit past/ jet lag is a constant/ my growth an attempt to get my bearings//


seamlessly shape shifting to find my level/ water personified/ my patience sculpts stone/ my vitality introduces the possibility/ of life//


i am no accident.


even if my parents had claimed i was/ i'd know better/ i was awaited in this world/ just as i was released from the other/ some grand anticipation/seems to color my forward movement//


the sun illuminates my moisture, and rainbows follow...


this is how i know i will grow into myself.